Page 2 of Pro Bono

“Is he alive?” Copes asked.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

The man who had made the declaration smiled and looked into Copes’s eyes. He was Holloway, and Copes and the others knew he was the one the newspapers had called “the Night Dispatcher” even though the authorities didn’t. He’d seen plenty of dead men and knew how to make them that way.

Minkeagan said, “All this blood. Is that from the windshield or did somebody light him up?”

“Broken neck and head trauma,” Holloway said, “but I don’t think it matters. Dead is dead.”

Minkeagan was moving to the back of the car, and Copes noticed he had taken the keys with him. Copes said to the others, “You’re right. Let’s get back on the bus, and we’ll call the cops at the first stop. I guess that’ll be the diner with the red roof.”

The others had lost interest when they’d learned the man was past saving, and they were tired, so they shuffled toward the bus. Minkeaganlingered. He used the key fob to open the car’s trunk and saw the leather case. He lowered the trunk lid a few inches to verify that the others were facing the bus and not him, then leaned in and opened the case. He saw the stack of cash, saw the manila envelope full of account reports with the names of banks and finance corporations. He left the cash, took the envelope, and slipped it up under his shirt and down behind his belt, closed the case, and then locked the trunk. He handed Copes the keys.

Copes knew better than to have the conversation now, so he joined Minkeagan and they trotted to board the bus with the last of the others. He got into the driver’s seat, waited for Minkeagan and the rest of the stragglers to sit, called out, “Everybody set and seated?” and then began to drive.

Minkeagan sat near the front, a few feet from Copes. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t tell him what he thought he had. He could keep it under his shirt for now, but very soon he would have to make a decision about where to hide it next. The ideal place would be somewhere inside the bus, but there was no part of the bus that didn’t get seen by somebody fairly regularly. The inner lining of one of the seats would be good, but the seats were getting pretty worn from normal use, and all the fire crew travel last year had accelerated that. This summer was likely to bring as many fires as last. A place like the cargo bay under the bus might have some spaces that could be opened and then closed, but it was full of fire gear right now. Time felt as though it was speeding up. When the bus got back to Ely, the guards would search everybody right away for contraband before they were brought to their cells.

Minkeagan didn’t get a chance to talk to Copes until they stopped at the restaurant and the others all got out to loiter around the parking lot and wait for the police. As soon as they were twenty feet from the nearest prisoner Minkeagan said, “It’s a bunch of stock, bond, and bank accounts.All the ones I saw were in the name Daniel Webster Rickenger. There’s some ID in that name too, some of it old, like his birth certificate. If we work this right in the next fifteen minutes, we’re rich. Once the cops get here the chance is gone.”

“I’ll go talk to the manager and look around,” Copes said. He walked toward the front door, studying the building as he went. He made it as far as the front entrance before a man in a necktie, a man with a cook’s white coat, and a waiter came out to head him off.

“How can we help you?” the man with the necktie said.

Copes said, “We’re a fire crew from Ely, just heading back after three weeks in California. We found a man who had been in a single-car accident two point three miles west on Fifty. The man is deceased. We stopped to ask you if you would please call the police and tell them, or let me use your phone to call them myself.”

The man with the necktie said, “Just you?”

“Yes, sir,” Copes said. “I’m driving the bus, so I feel like it’s part of the job.”

“Everybody else stays outside?”

“That’s right.”

“Come in.”

The man held the door open for Copes to enter, and followed him in, “You can use the phone over here by the lectern. It’s for taking reservations.” He guided him over to the lectern, which was empty now, the person replaced by a sign that said, “Please seat yourself.”

Copes dialed 911 and listened to the female operator’s greeting, “911, what is the location of your emergency?”

Copes told her as precisely as he could, gave his name and the group he was a part of, and said he would hold the bus and wait for the police to arrive and give them the keys to the wrecked car. He said he wouldhand over the phone to the manager of the restaurant and did. When the man had verified that Copes was real and hung up, Copes thanked him for the use of the phone and walked to the front door and went out to the parking lot again.

He was scanning for Minkeagan, saw him leaning on the side of the building, and approached him already talking. “There’s a hood with a ventilator running on the wall above the stove. I think they clean the fan from inside, and the vent is on the roof.” He kept walking while he was talking, drawing Minkeagan with him. They reached a spot near the back of the building where the roof sloped down to a height of about ten feet. He squatted and knitted his fingers to give Minkeagan a stirrup.

Minkeagan didn’t talk, just stepped onto his cupped hands and stretched his arms above his head while Copes lifted. He caught the edge of the roof and pulled himself upward while Copes kept pushing. In a few seconds Minkeagan was up. He bent low and walked as quietly as possible up the red roof. He had no trouble finding the vent because he could hear the hum of the fan. The rectangular sheet metal shaft rose above the roof about a foot and a half and turned sideways. Its mouth was a metal flap on a hinge. The flap was wavering outward an inch or two to emit a smoky, meaty smell from the grill. Minkeagan moved close to it, opened the flap and looked. Inside the shaft about a foot and a half down there was a screen, probably to keep any animals from using it as a way to get into the kitchen. He took the envelope out of his belt, slid it into the shaft so the bottom edge rested on the screen and the envelope was curled close to the inner side, so it might not be seen even if somebody removed the flap. It was a fairly tight fit without blocking the vent. He looked under the flap again, then took a step back. The vent was high enough to keep the mouth above the snow level, and the opening and flap faced southeast. There wasn’t going to be a better place.

Minkeagan hurried down to the edge of the roof, lay down, and lowered himself. When his legs reached the edge and draped downward he felt Copes wrap his arms around them and lower him to the ground. They walked past the front corner of the restaurant and saw that the other prisoners had gathered around the bus again. They joined the group and participated in the general complaining about how long it was taking for the cops to come, how long the drive from California had been, and the predictions of screwups to come. The police would try to blame the driver’s death on them, and treat everything they said like it was a lie just because. They would keep the bus waiting here long enough so they’d miss dinner at Ely.

A few minutes later two police cars and an ambulance pulled into the parking lot, and Copes went to meet them. One set of partners was a pair of large men, and the other car held a man and a woman. Copes gave the car keys to the first cop who approached him, and then told all the cops at once where the man and his car were. The male and female cops and the ambulance drove toward the accident scene, while the two men stayed behind and interviewed Copes and Minkeagan for the police report. After some conversation on their car radio, one of the cops told Copes and Minkeagan the bus could return to the prison.

By then, most of the fire crew were back inside in their seats, so the loading didn’t take long. Copes got in, looked at the clock, and saw his shift was over. He looked at the roster on the clipboard and called, “Daly! It’s your turn to drive.” He and Minkeagan went back to sitting together near the rear of the bus as it pulled back up out of the lot onto the highway.

The next day during exercise period while they lifted weights Minkeagan described to Copes every detail he could remember seeing in the packet of financial papers. They were finally far enough from otherprisoners to speak freely about the accounts, and about how, in reality, they were already rich. The money would stay where it was safe. In fact, it would grow. As soon as either of them could get out of Ely, he would go back to the restaurant, climb up on the roof, and retrieve the envelope. Within a few days he would become Daniel Webster Rickenger and make his way to Los Angeles to convert their wealth from investments into spendable cash. He would put half in a special account for the one who was still here in Ely. A life sentence was not an easy thing, but it seldom meant a man’s full life. Now that they knew what the future held for them, the years ahead were going to fly.

2

When Charlie Warren was fifteen, he was on his school’s swimming team. The culmination of the season was a sectional meet in Santa Barbara at the University of California’s big pool complex, where six schools competed over a three-day period during winter break. They stayed in the University’s vacated dormitories, ate at the student union, and competed during the day, with each event run in several heats.

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